I have the honour to report to your Lordship that 52,000 United Greeks in the Government of Siedlce have been received into the Russian National Church.
I need not recall to your Lordship's notice, the PERSECUTION of the UNITED GREEKS, which I have had to report for several years past, and which, within the last twelve months, has taken a more exaggerated form.
THE PASSING OVER OF THESE 50,000 UNITED GREEKS has been effected by various means, in which PHYSICAL MALTREATMENT has formed a not inconsiderable element.
In some parishes, THE MOST OBSTINATE having been sent to the interior of the Empire OR SIBERIA, THE REMAINDER, finding their substance being eaten up by the Cossacks, gave in to the pressure of the subordinate officials, and SIGNED THE PETITION DESIRING TO BE RECEIVED INTO THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.
In other districts money has been distributed, when it was seen that the resistance was less obdurate.
In others CORPORAL MALTREATMENT was resorted to, until the peasants gave in; but stating as they did so, that they yielded only on compulsion.
The details of the different degrees of compulsion in the various villages would take too much space to relate; but I cite as a specimen what I have heard, from a gentleman of whose veracity I have no reason to doubt, of what took place in a village on his property.
The peasants were assembled and beaten by the Cossacks, until the military surgeon stated that more would endanger life; THEY WERE THEN DRIVEN THROUGH A HALF-FROZEN RIVER UP TO THEIR WAISTS INTO THE PARISH CHURCH, through files of soldiers, where their names were entered in the petitions as above, and passed out at an opposite door, the peasants all the time crying out, "YOU MAY CALL US ORTHODOX, BUT WE REMAIN IN THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS."
* * * * *